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North Korea's 6000-man army of hackers come into their own
- partycoder 9y ago"You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war." - Napoleon
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- limeblack 9y ago> Workers remove a poster for “The Interview” from a billboard in Hollywood, California, on December 18, 2014, a day after Sony announced it would cancel the movie’s Christmas release and pull it from theaters. The only thing that I'm aware of that was pulled(since I was born) because of similar reasons were movies released around 9/11[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_entertainment_affected_by_the_September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_entertainment_affected...
- aaron695 9y agoThere's a lot of other examples, depending on how old you are. "These included “Earshot,” an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” that features a potential school shooter in a clocktower and was originally scheduled to air one week after the Columbine High School shootings occurred; “Mike and Molly” had a tornado-themed season finale episode postponed due to the real-life devastation incurred by the Oklahoma tornadoes; the “Reunion” episode of “Haven,” which featured gun violence occurring in a school, was due to air the very same day that the Sandy Hook shootings took place and was hastily pulled; “Family Guy” episode “Turban Cowboy” showed Peter plowing through the runners at the Boston Marathon, and when the bombings occurred a few months after it aired" http://www.indiewire.com/2014/07/10-controversial-tv-episodes-pulled-from-air-274493/ http://www.indiewire.com/2014/07/10-controversial-tv-episode... There are also movies "Space Camp was delayed back in 1986 following the Challenger explosion" "Trespass was originally called "The Looters" and (I think) it was set to show prior to the L.A. Riots. It got pushed to Christmas." https://forum.dvdtalk.com/movie-talk/549045-movies-came-out-were-delayed-due-bad-timing-events.html https://forum.dvdtalk.com/movie-talk/549045-movies-came-out-...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ryanlol 9y agoAll the cyber- words from the article cyber, cyberactivities, cyberattack, cyberattacks, cyberbattle, cyberconflict, cyberheists, cybermission, cyberoperations, cyberpolicy, cyberpotential, cyberpower, cyberprogram, cyberprograms, cyberretaliation, cybersecurity, cyberstrikes, cyberstudies, cyberthreat, cyberwar, cyberwarfare, cyberwarriors, cyberweapon
- rqs 9y agoPlease, add a space after each comma. Then you're my savior ... of the hour.
- olalonde 9y agoAfter each cybercomma.
- Bromskloss 9y ago… comes a cyberspace.
- wiradikusuma 9y ago2000™
- lpa22 9y agocould this trip google spam filters?
- adamnemecek 9y agoI wonder what will Scott is up to these days https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/z4m8qx/how-to-teach-computer-science-in-north-korea https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/z4m8qx/how-to-tea... and if he has second thoughts
- boomboomsubban 9y agoWhy should he? There's nothing suggesting his pupils are involved, and a teacher isn't at fault for their students transgressions.
- eradicatethots 9y agoYou can chose who to teach
- boomboomsubban 9y agoAnd anyone you choose to teach could use that lesson maliciously.
- adamnemecek 9y agoOK. What is I taught chemical warfare to SS? Would your opinion be the same?
- boomboomsubban 9y agoStrangely, I see a difference between teaching a voluntary paramilitary organization a method of warfare and teaching college students some computer science that they potentially could build on to cause harm. If I remove the hyperbole, I do not blame the physics and chemistry teachers of the 30's for the horrors of WWII.
- philliphaydon 9y agoI still find it hard to believe that NK is doing all this and not Russia or China or any other country for that matter.
- nejenendn 9y agoWell, it’s still working for NK, regardless of who funded it. Also, I think China is exceedingly unlikely to be the source here, especially when it’s been established the recent nuke technology came from the Ukraine.
- everybodyknows 9y agoSource for the Ukraine claim?
- nejenendn 9y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-missiles-ukraine-factory.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-mi...
- threeseed 9y agoWhy ? North Korea needs foreign reserves. And since they aren't part of the world economy and can't be punished why should they care about the implications. And I spent time in Pyongyang and spoke with an Indian worker there. North Korea was running secret 4G mesh networks off their fibre optic network very early on so clearly what people see/believe isn't the reality.
- danmaz74 9y agoRussia and China have much to lose if they get caught at this (especially China). NK doesn't.
- philliphaydon 9y agoSure but the internet for NK runs via China and Russia. Be easy for them to make it look like it’s from NK.
- hyperpallium 9y agoIf North Korea is so poor, how can they afford nuclear weapons, ballistic missles and skilled hackers? In the long-term, an impoverished population would make it harder, not easier. Are they not as poor as reported; or are they supplied by another?
- icpmacdo 9y agoFirst two paragraphs "When North Korean hackers tried to steal $1 billion from the New York Federal Reserve last year, only a spelling error stopped them. They were digitally looting an account of the Bangladesh Central Bank, when bankers grew suspicious about a withdrawal request that had misspelled “foundation” as “fandation.” Even so, Kim Jong-un’s minions still got away with $81 million in that heist"
- malloryerik 9y agoExactly, and I wonder how much they made from WannaCry. http://www.ibtimes.co.in/north-korea-behind-deadly-wannacry-ransomware-attack-microsoft-745664 http://www.ibtimes.co.in/north-korea-behind-deadly-wannacry-... Also we should remember that North Korean hackers don't receive Silicon Valley salaries; whatever remuneration they receive is purely at the pleasure of the palace.
- monocasa 9y agoWell, the NSA is behind the exploit. They're the ones who were sitting on the 0day that got leaked.
- fellellor 9y agoThat's only 81 million revenue. The profit might be much smaller. The resources to Spy on the bank officials and creating the malware that style the credentials would certainly not have been free.
- malloryerik 9y agoIt's still a country of 25 million, and the state technically owns everything. The internet units most likely pay for themselves and then some, since much of their activity is theft.
- rl3 9y ago>Now intelligence officials estimate that North Korea reaps hundreds of millions a dollars a year from ransomware, digital bank heists, online video game cracking, and more recently, hacks of South Korean Bitcoin exchanges. How does "online video game cracking" even compare to the other items listed? Most titles are cracked by elite teams of reverse engineers who are mostly located in Western countries, and they do it for free. All I can figure is they're providing cracking support to street-level piracy operations that primarily deal with heavily localized software or games that the mainstream scene wouldn't normally touch. Perhaps the author was referring to the sale of cheats, or even real money trading in MMO games. Whichever the case, I find the mention odd given it has no further explanation. It almost sounds like a nod to special interests, except there's no telltale mention of film piracy beyond the Sony affair.
- rtpg 9y agoGold farming? Hacking mobile games (and their payment systems)? I'm also a bit confused, but there are ways to turn "game accounts" into cash in a lot of spaces.... Kinda feel like intelligence officials are not exactly at the beck and call of the ESA.
- rl3 9y ago>... Hacking mobile games (and their payment systems)? Good point. Add social games to that as well. It's probably easier to pull off shady activity when targeting a sea of shady activity in the first place. >Kinda feel like intelligence officials are not exactly at the beck and call of the ESA. DHS and State do tow that line, however. Intellectual property and anti-piracy matters are a non-trivial component of U.S. foreign policy these days.
- danmaz74 9y agoI suppose that they were talking about cracking online video games which allow exchange of digital goods for money, as a way to make money for NK.
- misterHN 9y agoWhy is London letting NK steal US dollars? London could put an end to this at any point. If the will were there (apparently it isn't???)
- wheresmyusern 9y agothe idea that kim is trying to make his cyber program an alternative to his nuclear program, as suggested at the very end of the article, is completely wrong. the nuclear program is kims number one priority and it will remain so until it is completed. north korea is racing against the clock to develop a nuke, just like iran, because it is the only way that the country can survive. without a nuke, north korea will eventually give in to western influence and ultimately western powers will provoke a destabilization event and put their own person into power. the one and only thing that will prevent that is a nuclear weapon.
- Firebrand 9y ago>north korea is racing against the clock to develop a nuke, just like iran, I was kinda with you until you had to casually accuse Iran of violating the JCPOA.
- boomboomsubban 9y agoChina already prevents a western power from some kind of coup, that's why it hasn't happened already. A nuke is necessary to prevent more Chinese supported coups.
- gediminas7 9y agoRansomware is from North Korea? Is it true? Or just a piece of propaganda preparing to attack North Korea, to have approvement of people?
- xenadu02 9y agoThe Russian bot accounts are out in force apparently. Yes it is well-known NK has been involved in various ransomware schemes. They seem unique in being state-sponsored. Most of the Russian, Chinese, and US schemes are criminal enterprises.
- eradicatethots 9y agoGreen account too
- hutzlibu 9y agoWell, not well known to me. And in case of wannacry, where the nyt states as a fact it was north corea, that is news to me, as I never saw any proof. Might be possible or even likely, yes, but I do not like things presented to me as a fact if it isn't one.
- drvdevd 9y agoThe Mythical 6000-man Month.
- aaron695 9y agoI'd like to see proof. For starters this is BS "Once North Korea counterfeited crude $100 bills" These notes are so good they were fooling US banks at one stage only the reserve could identity them. I'd also note initially it was being reported it was Iran producing the superdollar but now that's shifted. US intelligence isn't as accurate as people seem to think. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdollar
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- malaya_zemlya 9y agoI wonder why North Koreans haven't yet started a darknet market of some sort. They have the skills, the means and it's not like they have moral qualms about that sort of a thing.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ben_jones 9y agoHonest question, can you learn netsec etc. without many thousands of hours of "fooling around" on the internet? Participating in online discussion boards, reading postmortems and documentation, listening to conference speakers? How does the military train it? I have trouble believing you can develop these skillsets without carte blanche to the internet. Are they importing talent from surrounding regions? Do they just run "dumb" hacking tools made by others against low hanging fruit?
- ringaroundthetx 9y agosure you can learn it without all that. hacking is just a puzzle, with the most intuitive use being the GUI presented, but needing to learning how to look at the puzzle. concepts of privilege escalation are simple, and most organizations are vulnerable with low hanging fruit.
- Jach 9y agoI suspect a lot of important personnel in NK (including some programmers and some university students; that set probably overlaps a lot) have access to the internet, or at least most of it, even if monitored. So don't assume that they're not learning in isolation. But even if so, there are common principles you could study from books and test systems. (They'd be smart to apply their people to securing their own systems as well with red/blue teams...) Plus if you know your target, you can dedicate your time to finding ways to attack that target, you don't need to keep up to date with the latest from e.g. tech talks.
- arwhatever 9y agoTo hack, don't people need access to the world at large, or at least the internet part of the world at large? Would if not be possible to subvert North Korean hacking activities by using propaganda?
- codedokode 9y agoI think the article is overexaggerating. Nuclear weapon and nuclear threats are real. One nuclear bomb can kill hundred thousand civilians (because nuclear weapon is a weapon effective only against civilians). "Cyberweapon" is a joke. I don't know whether South Korean cities have bomb shelters but they better have.
- unlmtd1 9y ago> When North Korean hackers tried to steal $1 billion from the New York Federal Reserve last year How do they know that? The last clue led to a chinese man. Ahh right! They made it up!